The artful Tajiks of Central Asia invented and preserved their crafts and traditions since ancient times. One popular craft among the people is textile weaving, mainly silk weaving, which has its own local features throughout Tajikistan. Atlas and adras silk fabrics as well as chitgari (block-printing) made with natural colors are known in northern Tajikistan while gulbast is known in southern regions.

The artful Tajiks of Central Asia invented and preserved their crafts and traditions since ancient times. One popular craft among the people is textile weaving, mainly silk weaving, which has its own local features throughout Tajikistan. Atlas and adras silk fabrics as well as chitgari (block-printing) made with natural colors are known in northern Tajikistan while gulbast is known in southern regions.

Historically, Margilan was the centre for making atlas and adras – vivid and fine traditional fabrics. Due to the acute need to revive and safeguard traditions at risk of disappearing, the local community came up with an initiative to launch the Crafts Development Centre (CDC) in 2007. The CDC’s goal is to safeguard, develop and promote the method of Uzbek traditional atlas and adras making through innovative training sessions, exhibitions and craft fairs, traditional textile festivals, and the publication of safeguarding materials and manuals. The CDC also promotes the use of natural materials, and supports the transmission of knowledge and skills about nature and the universe and their role in ensuring people’s health and wellbeing.

Fabric making art has been known in the territory of Uzbekistan since ancient times. Initially fabrics were weaved only from cotton. But in the first and second centuries bce, due to trading along the Great Silk Road, our ancestors learned the secrets of weaving silk fabrics.\n\nThis film includes some of the thirty-two stages involved with making abr fabrics. Rasuljon Mirzaahmedov is the representative of the ninth generation of abr makers. He revived various secrets of abr making as the result of his research on Uzbek fabrics being kept not only in the museums of Uzbekistan but also in Moscow and Saint-Petersburg and in other cities of Europe. As follow up his studies he established ikat weaving workshops in many regions of Uzbekistan as well as in neighboring countries.